Don’t Blame Me, It’s Tradition
by Sarah1281
Summary: After an unsatisfying meeting with Goldanna, Lady Aeducan shares her experiences with her family and being a noble and Alistair quickly realizes that the only way for him to stay sane is to find some way to make Anora be Queen instead...


Don't Blame Me, It's Tradition

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

Note: This is a bit of a strange taken on the Dwarf Noble, I think, but surviving and thriving (until Trian's death) in such a decadent court doesn't really point to a saintly PC. Also, this is officially my 100th story, so that's an accomplishment. :)

Alistair was disappointed with the outcome of his quest to find his family, to put it mildly.

"I can't believe she couldn't even pretend to be happy to see me before asking me for money," he was still complaining a good half an hour after the meeting had ended as he and his fellow Grey Warden wandered the streets of Denerim.

"Well, it's not like she needed to," Aunn – or Lady Aeducan as she had insisted on being referred to as almost the moment Harrowmont had been crowned King and she'd cleared up her lingering exile issues – pointed out. "**Five** Sovereigns, I swear…"

"You could have said no," Alistair shot back. "I DID ask, if you recall."

Lady Aeducan shrugged. "Yeah, but why bother? By the time I loot the next idiots who attack us, we'll have more than made that money back. Speaking of, I've heard there are bandits attacking the back allies. We could look into that."

"I love how you're keeping the streets safe for the sake of your beloved pocketbook," Alistair said dryly.

"At least I'm keeping the streets safe," Lady Aeducan said defiantly, crossing her arms. "That's more than I can say about the Chantry. And if I wasn't so concerned about the perpetually dismal state of our finances, then we wouldn't be able to afford throwing money at people like your sister at the drop of a hat."

"'Perpetually dismal'?" Alistair repeated incredulously. "We have over five hundred Sovereigns!"

"Six hundred and seventy-eight," Lady Aeducan corrected absently. "No thanks to you, I might add."

"I hardly think all of those people who gave up treasured family heirlooms in order to thank you or try to help with the Blight would appreciate you selling them the minute you're out of sight," Alistair said reprovingly.

Lady Aeducan rolled her eyes. "The minute I'm out of sight? Please, Alistair, have some faith in me." She paused. "I would at _least_ wait until we hit the next town. I wouldn't want them to come across their cherished heirloom in a shop somewhere and blame me. Seriously, though, you worry too much; I'm sure that by the time you ride in, as King, in order to lift her up out of poverty and obscurity, she'll have worked up quite a bit of pretend caring."

Alistair still looked uncertain. "I just…I thought families were supposed to be, I don't know, all welcoming and full of warm and fuzzy feelings – why are you laughing?"

"I'm not laughing," Lady Aeducan lied, making a valiant attempt nonetheless to cease her giggles.

"I'd be much more inclined to believe you if you weren't laughing through your denial," Alistair said flatly.

"Sorry," Lady Aeducan attempted to apologize. "And who knows? You might be right."

Alistair shot her a skeptical look but didn't deign to respond to that.

"No, it's true!" Lady Aeducan insisted. "Just because that might not be either of our experiences…or Morrigan's…or Zevran's…or Oghren's…Leliana's family was nice."

"Didn't her mother die when she was four or something?" Alistair asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Thereabouts," Lady Aeducan admitted. "But still! Isolde was very concerned about Arl Eamon and was willing to sacrifice her life to help Connor. And then there was that one guy who told us how to wake Shale. He was overly worried about his idiot daughter."

"Amalia wasn't an idiot; she was just tricked by a demon," Alistair defended the absent child who probably couldn't care less that the dwarven Princess thought she was daft.

"Whatever happened to 'only mages or potential mages can be possessed' anyway?" Lady Aeducan wondered. "Does she need to go to the Circle or something? Whatever, I don't really care. And trusting a talking cat…she had to have been at least twelve. Us interfering was basically flipping off the entire concept of survival of the fittest."

"That's rather…harsh," Alistair told her uneasily.

Lady Aeducan gave a long-suffering sigh and shook her head. "I'm dwarven royalty, Alistair. What do you expect? We're kind of like Orlaisian royalty except we don't see it as a game but rather to gain power of wealth."

Alistair's eyes were full of pity. "I am so sorry for you. That must have been so horrible?"

"Was it?" Lady Aeducan asked, feeling strangely like Morrigan and finding a newfound appreciation for just how annoying it was whenever her companions apologized to someone for how their life had turned out. "I can't really say. But one thing it taught me that you really ought to learn is that everyone's out for themselves."

"Even you?" Alistair asked uncertainly.

Lady Aeducan permitted herself a sad smile. "_Especially _me."

Alistair was quiet for a moment, thinking about it. At last he said, "I don't know if I **want** to be able to understand that kind of worldview. I mean, by the Maker, you don't even think Loghain is evil incarnate and you know what really happened at Ostagar!"

Lady Aeducan rolled her eyes again. "That's because from what I've seen, he isn't. I just don't see why you're this worked up over what he did."

"He betrayed Duncan and the King, let them die, and then blamed it all on us!" Alistair cried out.

"Well, I can certainly see why that would annoy you. I know that it definitely annoys me. But you seem more upset than such an inconvenience really warrants if your moniker for him as 'evil incarnate' is any indication," Lady Aeducan said thoughtfully.

"He left Duncan and King Cailan to die!" Alistair shouted again.

"You keep saying that," Lady Aeducan noted.

"It keeps being true," Alistair snapped. "Why doesn't this upset you?"

"You mean other than the fact that I really didn't know them or care much about the Ferelden throne?" Lady Aeducan asked rhetorically.

"Yes, aside from that," Alistair answered, completely serious.

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes again – because really, there were only so many times one could do that in polite conversation before the other party began to take offence – Lady Aeducan murmured, "Most people would think that would be enough…But I guess I'm just really impressed that he managed to get away with such an audacious maneuver."

"He did _not_ get away with it," Alistair declared fiercely, his eyes flashing.

"Didn't he?" Lady Aeducan gave rhetorical questions another try and quickly answered it herself so Alistair wouldn't. "Most everyone who wasn't personally loyal to Loghain ended up dying and everyone either believes that we're guilty or is forced into going along with it."

"But we're still alive!" Alistair said triumphantly.

"That is a loose end, true," Lady Aeducan conceded, nodding seriously. "And Wynne also made it out. Really, though, she is a very powerful mage and while she may have convinced the Circle, the Templars don't necessarily believe anything. That Flemeth herself would turn into a dragon and rescue us from the Tower is a little beyond any reasonable contingency."

"For the last time, she did **not **turn into a dragon," Alistair scoffed.

"How would you know?" Lady Aeducan demanded. "You were unconscious!"

"Fine. Why would she have turned herself into a dragon?" Alistair asked, sounding very much like he was humoring her.

Lady Aeducan had her answer ready, however. "Dragons are big, powerful, and can fly. They also have the added benefit of looking a great deal like Archdemons, which would help her get in and get us out without darkspawn interference."

"You have a point, I suppose," Alistair acknowledged grudgingly. "But we're not the only so-called 'loose end'! Arl Eamon doesn't believe Loghain's treachery and he's going to call the Landsmeet."

"I would just like to point out that us locating the fabled Urn of Andraste-" Lady Aeducan began.

"Urn of Sacred Ashes," Alistair corrected.

"I don't really care what they're called," Lady Aeducan informed them. "But us finding that and pulling off a miracle cure also happens to fall outside the realm of reasonable potential problems. We can still stop him, but only because completely unforeseeable things keep working in our favor. And in the meantime, he's totally getting away with it."

"But…doesn't it bother you that he's an evil bastard?" Alistair sounded almost desperate.

Lady Aeducan fixed him with an incredulous look. "Did you not pay attention to anything that happened in Orzammar?"

Alistair cocked his head questioningly before his eyes cleared. "Oh, right. You were exiled for killing your brother, weren't you?"

Lady Aeducan twitched. "I did not kill my brother."

Alistair arched an eyebrow.

"Well, not that brother at any rate," she quickly amended.

"So what happened?" Alistair asked gently. "If you don't mind me asking."

Lady Aeducan briefly considered not telling him as it could very likely result in another apology about her life, which she had liked just fine before her exile, but realized that he would probably take it the wrong way and be upset for hours. Never let it be said that that boy didn't dwell. "I was one of the children of the extremely popular and respected King Endrin. My older brother, Trian, was the heir but I was the one who everyone liked. I really don't blame them: Trian was kind of a prick and whenever I had someone put to death for annoying me, I had it look like an accident."

"Why did you have people put to death for annoying you at all?" Alistair inquired, not seeming to realize why it was, if not necessary, prevalent enough to confuse people if a noble didn't do it.

"It's just what people do," Lady Aeducan explained. "If I didn't, people would think it was okay to annoy me and before you know it, people would think I was weak and try to kill me." Alistair was looking mildly horrified by this point, so she reluctantly continued, "That's not to say I'm unreasonable. For instance, the day before my exile, this one nobody merchant gave me a dagger that had taken him years to make. It was actually a very nice weapon. I wish I still had it…"

"How does someone giving you something prove that you're not unreasonable?" Alistair didn't get it.

"Well, I didn't kill him, did I?" Lady Aeducan said as if it were obvious.

Poor Alistair was more confused than ever. "Why would you? He gave you an amazing handcrafted weapon for free."

"True," Lady Aeducan allowed. "But he was only a smith so that was rather presumptuous of him. He had actually tried to have it delivered to the palace but Bhelen thought it was funny to make the messenger wait around for hours for an irate Trian to throw him out. Everyone expected me to kill the guy, but it was such a **nice** weapon."

"You know, I don't think I've ever been so grateful to have spent most of my life not involved with the nobility," Alistair remarked.

"I don't think Ferelden nobility is quite that…callous," Lady Aeducan attempted to reassure him. Her plans involved him on the throne of Ferelden, after all, and it wouldn't do to scare him off this early. "But anyway, my little brother Bhelen was widely regarded as the untalented one who was just there. He never seemed particularly bright or accomplished nor was he especially loved. He told me that he thought Trian was plotting against me because the Assembly might choose me over him but I elected to wait until Trian made the first move before acting. Looking back, he had been hanging around with Trian quite a bit in the days before he died and Trian got a great deal colder towards me during that time. I think Bhelen convinced him I was plotting against him since, as he was the heir and I was the back-up heir, that was a much more believable claim than what he told me."

"So he took advantage of the fact that you both underestimated him to turn you against each other," Alistair realized.

Lady Aeducan nodded. "That certainly would have been his ideal outcome. It wouldn't have been too difficult since we all acted like we had to stop him from eating the paste half the time. Poor kid, I really can't blame him for trying to kill us all…but anyway. Maybe Trian would have eventually moved against me or perhaps he decided to be cautious as well. Being a kin-slayer is anathema in Orzammar, you know. When I went off to recover the Shield of Aeducan, on my way back I discovered Train's body."

"I am so sorry," Alistair said automatically. "And they blamed you just like that?"

Again, Lady Aeducan forced herself not to roll her eyes although it was sorely tempting. "Not exactly 'just like that.' I had encountered a scout and some well-respected noble proving fighter in the Deep Roads earlier and they went with me on my epic quest. Bhelen showed up almost immediately after I found Trian along with several of his cronies, my father, and Harrowmont. Bhelen let his second do his accusing for him as he hid behind a mask of grief."

"But wouldn't your companions be able to explain what really happened?" Alistair asked innocently. Rather naïve, in Lady Aeducan's opinion, but from what she'd seen human nobility seemed to expect fair play, even when they didn't get it.

"Well, they _would_ have been able to clear things up," Lady Aeducan conceded, "but Gorim was too loyal to my family and me in particular to be believed in this matter. The scout accused me of fratricide and even though I rightly pointed out that he wasn't the right caste to condemn me, his word backed up the noble's accusations."

"So you were framed," Alistair said softly.

"Tell me about it," Lady Aeducan agreed. "But it gets better."

"Well, that's good," Alistair said brightly.

Lady Aeducan shook her head. "Not really. By 'better' I meant 'worse'."

"Then why did you say 'better'?" Alistair queried.

Lady Aeducan sighed. "It's just a figure of speech."

"Well, it's a deliberately misleading one," Alistair sniffed.

"I wouldn't say that it's _deliberately_ misleading," Lady Aeducan disagreed. "After all, you'd probably have realized what I meant after I told you the Assembly voted to send me off to the Deep Roads to die a warrior's death without even giving me a trial."

"What?" Alistair gasped. "That's barbaric!"

"I know, right?" Lady Aeducan felt secure in rolling her eyes as it was more about the shoddy way the Assembly had handled the aftermath of her 'crime' than at Alistair's naivety. "They could have at least given me a show trial but I think Bhelen realized that even if he did bribe half of the Assembly, everyone still loved me so giving me a chance to get off was a bad idea."

"But you didn't die, even when they sent you off alone and barely armed to face darkspawn," Alistair noted.

"Well spotted," Lady Aeducan said dryly. "They send the condemned to seek a warrior's death fighting darkspawn as a way to semi-redeem them before they go. Right before Gorim was exiled to the surface – although surely not too soon before as he was still apparently in Orzammar when my father got gravely ill and regretful and that kind of thing doesn't happen overnight – he told me that Harrowmont and my father wanted me to seek out Duncan as my only hope of salvation."

"Duncan was great like that," Alistair smiled fondly. "Wait…why was Gorim exiled?"

Lady Aeducan had never actually considered the question. "I don't know," she said finally. "Because I was exiled and he was my second. Harrowmont told me that he tried to get me exiled to the surface, too, but I think Bhelen was worried that I would gather allies and return triumphantly to Orzammar to cause him problems. Which I totally did."

"So because he had the bad fortune of being the second to someone who got exiled, he got exiled too? That's absurd," Alistair declared.

"What do you _mean_ 'bad fortune'?" Lady Aeducan demanded with narrowed eyes. "We got along great and I'm awesome. Although, I suppose you have a point about being exiled…And speaking of, what can I say? It's tradition."

"Well it's a stupid tradition," Alistair said petulantly, crossing his arms.

Lady Aeducan groaned. "Now you sound like my brother."

Alistair blinked, not sure what she meant by that. "Which one?"

"Bhelen."

"Don't compare me to that bastard!" Alistair ordered.

"He never liked traditions either. That's actually what started this whole mess in the first place," Lady Aeducan revealed.

"His hatred of royal succession tradition?" Alistair guessed.

"That too," Lady Aeducan smiled slightly. "I meant the whole mess with Harrowmont and Bhelen both vying for the throne."

"What does Bhelen's hatred of tradition have to do with anything as far as that's concerned?" Alistair questioned.

"My father discovered how anti-tradition he was and deemed him unfit to rule. Since I wasn't around, he asked Harrowmont to succeed him," Lady Aeducan answered.

"But what about his kin-slaying tendencies? Your father's note said he saw what Bhelen really was-" Alistair started to say.

Lady Aeducan's smile turned rueful. "He already knew what happened, you know. He confessed that he never believed I had done it but he thought an investigation would cause a scandal and keep House Aeducan off the throne. If Bhelen hadn't killed Trian, where was the scandal?"

"And there wasn't a scandal when they said you killed him?" Alistair didn't believe it.

"Oh, no, there was," Lady Aeducan assured him. "But it was one the Aeducans could recover from. If it came out that of my father's three children, one was ignobly slain, one had been under suspicion of fratricide and might still have been involved, and one orchestrated the whole mess, there's no way the damage could have been fixed in my father's lifetime. He was rather old, you know."

"So if your father knew and – Maker forbid – chose the throne over you, why did he change his mind?" Alistair asked slowly. "Guilty conscience?"

Lady Aeducan snorted. "As if. My father was very reverent towards traditions and Harrowmont is the same. He could put up with fratricide because Bhelen got away with it but his blatant disregard for traditions? That was too much. Did you know that Bhelen wanted to give surface dwarves their castes back and give the casteless greater rights? Not to mention his little casteless plaything was allowed to lounge around in the Palace letting herself be seen by people! That's fine once a son is born but before…honestly, it's a wonder it took my father so long to see that."

"Maybe after he was the sole heir, he decided it didn't matter," Alistair suggested.

"You may be right," Lady Aeducan said vaguely.

"And what about you?" Alistair pressed. "Where do you stand on those issues?"

"I don't know," Lady Aeducan confided. "On a purely moral standpoint, weakening the caste system is a sound idea but dwarven nobility has never been **about **morality. And just think of how much trouble any radical changes will cause in the Assembly. And giving power to others weakens your own power. I'm probably somewhere between Harrowmont and Bhelen. You know, I almost wish Bhelen had become king."

Alistair gaped. "What? After everything he did to you? How can you say that?!?!"

"Because if he had become king, it would have made all of this worth something instead of just a lot of pointless bickering," Lady Aeducan explained, sighing. "I'm still not sure I made the right choice. I really hate moral dilemmas."

"How was that a moral dilemma?" Alistair cried. "He was clearly evil!"

Lady Aeducan waved a hand dismissively. "That's neither here nor there. Harrowmont was on my side and genuinely wanted to help me, but House Aeducan had been on the throne for nine generations. When I set out I was seeking only a warrior's death or – failing that – the throne of Orzammar. And now I've taken it from my family and given it to a House that has _never_ held the crown."

"I'm really not sure I understand your desire for the throne given my own reluctance to become king of Fereldon," Alistair said carefully. "But still-"

"It's the way we were brought up," Lady Aeducan replied matter-of-factly. "If you had wanted to be king then it would have caused problems for King Cailan but I always knew that if anything happened to Trian, I would be Queen."

"At least Harrowmont had you declared his heir before you left," Alistair reminded her. "And you also made the Assembly grant you Paragon status, which might have been overkill."

Lady Aeducan shrugged. "Well we were distinctly lacking in living Paragons and the time was right. I had just killed the half of the Assembly that screwed me over and the rest of the deshyrs had always loved me."

"And feared you, the way you stood there covered in blood and holding your sword when you demanded to be a Paragon," Alistair countered.

"If you feel you have to choose between being feared and loved, try harder," Lady Aeducan said sagely, "because you really don't. And there hasn't been an unanimous vote for Paragon since my own ancestor."

"Did he have to wipe out half of the Assembly first?" Alistair wondered, only half-sarcastic.

"No, but the other deshyrs were forced to hack a would-be dissenting vote to death," Lady Aeducan responded primly.

Alistair stared at her in growing horror. "Why are you trying to get me involved in the world of politics? Do you secretly hate me?"

"If I do, it is a deeply subconscious hatred, let me assure you," Lady Aeducan promised.

"That's…not really very comforting," Alistair said frankly.

"Well that's the best I can do," Lady Aeducan said flatly. "And don't worry, once you're king you're pretty much safe. Everyone up to and including the heir to the throne is fair game but the king himself can't be touched. If he could, we'd never get anything done and would have an endless parade of successors, wiping out half of the noble Houses in a matter of years."

"And that would be a bad thing?" Alistair asked.

Lady Aeducan glared at him. "YES. Loghain killed a king, so that does put him slightly higher on my 'to kill' list since that simply isn't done."

"Good to know," Alistair commented. "So basically it's practicality that saves your king, not morality?"

Lady Aeducan hesitated. "Well, I'd like to think of it as morals brought on by necessity. Paragons are above schemes as well and becoming a Paragon really was the quickest way to circumvent my exile."

"Bhelen was willing to stand against Caridin's word," Alistair pointed out.

"I think he realized that by 'Caridin chose Harrowmont' I really meant 'Caridin doesn't care but I bugged him until he made me a crown and I chose Harrowmont'," Lady Aeducan clarified. "And even if not, if I had picked Bhelen, Harrowmont would have stood down. You can't go against a Paragon, which is why we're pretending Branka was eaten by darkspawn. Not that that would have stopped Bhelen from having Harrowmont executed, but, once again, tradition means nothing to him. And thus I really did become a kin-slayer."

"You did the right thing," Alistair said firmly. "It was either him or you and we need you."

"You think I don't know that?" Lady Aeducan asked bitterly. "I regret that it happened but given another chance I'd have done it again."

"That doesn't really make any sense," Alistair confessed.

"He was my brother," Lady Aeducan said simply.

"But he betrayed you!" Alistair cried. "And yet you told him you were proud of him right before you killed him."

"Well, I was," Lady Aeducan confirmed. "He outplayed me and if he had been a bit more discrete, he would have been our undisputed king. His only mistake was not seeing to it that I was killed personally and blaming an overzealous Trian supporter. Still, that I had become a Grey Warden was rather unlikely."

Alistair didn't quite know what to say so he repeated, "But he betrayed you!"

Lady Aeducan's eyes hardened. "I knew the score. That's the way things have always been among the nobility and if I didn't like it, then I could have gone to the surface. Of course, then I would have to leave behind everyone so a little political backstabbing seemed like a small price to pay. Just because my immediate family basically imploded doesn't mean we loved each other any less."

Alistair's jaw worked for a few seconds. "You admit Orzammar was like that, Leliana has said the same of Orlais, according to Zevran the Crows are practically a noble institution…Would it REALLY be so bad to just let Anora have the throne?"

Review Please!


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